Faced with sexual violence, the Pope reaffirms that the Church must “be ashamed and ask for forgiveness”

The Catholic Church “must be ashamed and ask for forgiveness” for sexual violence against minors committed by the clergy in Belgium, Pope Francis said on Friday September 27 in Brussels, against a backdrop of strong expectations from victims in this country marked by scandals. “The Church must (…) seek to resolve this situation with Christian humility and do everything possible to ensure that this does not happen again”added the Argentine pope in a speech to the authorities in Brussels.

Francis, who had already promised a “zero tolerance” on this subject, is to receive at the end of the day at the nunciature in Brussels (the embassy of the Holy See) fifteen victims of rape or sexual assault by ecclesiastics in Belgium in the last century. A meeting “discreetly” according to the Belgian Church which says it wants to protect the anonymity of these people. Friday morning, François also said “saddened” by the so-called scandal “forced adoptions” with the complicity of religious orders, a tragedy which affected thousands of Belgians between the end of the Second World War and the 1980s.